Microwave slippers here I come

My feet are sooooo cold.
(they usually are unless they are boiling hot. Thank you perimenopause)
But I have these clever beanbag type slippers that go in the microwave and warm me up a treat.
Unless I put them in for too long and then I go "Mmmmm oooooOOOOOOWWWWW get 'em OFF" as they are lovely until the pain receptors hit the brain!
We have had a lovely few days in Torquay but the evenings are very cold.

I've had a busy week - a lovely retreat last week with Phil in a place that lives to allow Ministers time to rest and recuperate. But I came back to prepare the funeral of a dear Church member and lots of meetings and stuff :( So I'm a bit pooped now. 

(Plus I had my VitB12 injection today and I've noticed my energy levels going down. (uh huh I am officially v. old))
Hmmm seem to have almost weaned myself off excessive !!!! to be replaced by far too many (...)

Changing the subject from my grammatical foibles, I have two weeks worth of Daring cards to share. I made the fruity one last Friday but then gave it to number 1 son on Saturday as he was 23. (By the time I was his age I was married!!!) oh look-  both (!!!!)

Anyway, last weeks theme was chosen by Jo - Feeling Fruity

 I used my new Dienamics die again - but this time first cut my card to be closer to US size - 5 1/2 by 4 1/6 (it should be 4 1/4 but UK paper isn't that wide). A lot of embellishments and dies work better on this size card because that is what they were made for.

I cut out three stitched circles from watercolour paper, drew some fruit and coloured it in with Clean Color markers. A hand written punny title - just what you need for birthdays in our family) and lots of black pen and it was done.

This week we had a lovely inspiration piece chosen by Beckie as it is time for the September elemental challenge

I actually made two cards (as I needed two) and photographed them at different times of day 

So what I did was.... die cut cut a panel from heavy white card stock. Then I smooshed some dry distress ink in oranges, pinks and reds to go with the inspiration piece across the card stock. I have some Perfect pearls spray that went over the top, giving that lovely flecked look. When that was dry I used a star stencil and white embossing paste over the top - just like on that delicious looking pie in the pic.

Whilst that was drying I die cut the leaves and sentiment from coloured card stock. The Clearly Besotted  leaves were smothered in a diamond glitter paste and the "thank you" was also cut from white card and stuck together. When everything was assembled it was time to add a few Stickles berries and call them both done!

And the rest of the weekend when I am not working will mostly feature getting my daughter ready to go back to Uni on Monday. And of course, heating up those slippers

Ruby Rock-It and Daring Cardmakers blog hop

Welcome blog hoppers!
Today the Ruby Rock-It and Daring Cardmakers teams are uniting to showcase some of the lovely crafting goodies that Ruby Rock-It have out now
So you can sit, relax, and hop through the blogs of our Creative Team members as we show you what we have been creating! (And then make your shopping list...)

You should have come here from Erin and then move on to Pattie
If you get lost then hop back to the Daring Cardmaker blog where the full list will put you straight

And hopping comes with a reward - leave a comment for each of our fabulous designers along the way, and be sure to leave one on your last stop, the Ruby Rock-it blog! Everyone that follows until the end, leaving your sweet sentiments along the way, will be entered to win a fabulous prize from Ruby Rock-it, to be announced in the first week of September    
That's all the words - here is the picture.
It is just a bit pink....

Yes, I have some Picked Rasberry Distress Ink and Spray and I know how to use them (kind of)
I love the bright pink sparkles of the Ruby Rock-It glitter paper and decided to mimic it by spraying some Ruby Rock-It paper flowers with pink spray. I also coloured another flower with Heidi Swapp Tinsel mist (NB the pink remains wet for a long time so best to leave overnight so that you don't transfer any pink to your silver flower even when they seem dry. As I might have discovered when it was all stuck down...)
I coloured the edges of some white cardstock with the Distress Ink and then stuck all my layers together. A Ruby Rock-It wooden arrow also had the same ink treatment. Finally I used some Ruby Rock-It letter stickers and a sentiment which I cut around and then outlined with black sharpie.

Enjoy the rest of the hop and don't forget to comment :)

"We are family

My mum and dad are staying with me" 
as Sister Sledge didn't sing.
Also my son's partner is staying for the moment so we have had 8 adults in the house for a week.
Fortunately the hours that everyone is up at the same time are not as many as in "normal" households so we have been able to cope!

Mum and Dad came to celebrate Dad's birthday - cue a birthday meal at Prezzos for 8 on one day; crab sandwiches on Brixham harbour and pan fried fresh fish in the evening the next (Phil does an awesome job with fish!); finished off with the best carvery in the world from the Parkers Arms  (high praise from a vegetarian) on day three - it was more of a birth-weekend really!

His birthday is a week apart from number 1 son ... all of which led to my Daring Challenge this week and another cheesy 80's pop number Let's Here it for the Boy(s)
I went for an old classic from me - something bright with stars on!

I received a new set of Dienamics dies this week and used loads of them on this card along with Echo Park I love sunshine papers. The "birthday" die is from Clearly Besotted and the "Happy" stickers came from the Ruby Rockit goodies I was sent recently. The team have been fabulously inventive so do have a look at the blog.

Next week will be completely different as I am on study leave and am going to a retreat place with Phil where they look after Ministers really well....but there is no phone signal and no internet so I will be bereft! But it does me good... and just two people to cater for instead of 8. How will we manage?

 

Winter in August

being terribly British, please allow me a moan about the weather! Today it is lovely in Torquay (slightly marred by the sound of heavy machinery outside the window but heigh ho). But other days it has been torrential rain and practically dark at 4. I wouldn't mind so much were it not for the fact that it makes photographing things quite challenging!

Yesterday afternoon it was a bit brighter so I reshot my Daring card for this week. It isn't that easy to capture anyway as it has some VERY shiny elements to it. 
Kathy asked us to talk texture and get all touchy feely.
I dug through my drawers to find some of the materials that I used when I was dabbling in creative textiles and came up with some muslin, some builders scrim and angelina fibres (bright bits of "stuff" that you fuse together using a hot iron) and this is the result...

It was all backed with that sort of paper that was all the rage when I began cardmaking which must be about 12 years ago now. You wet the edges to get it into a rough shape. But I can't remember what it is called at all! Can anyone help?

The scrim and muslin were sprayed with various tones of pink and purple mist and left to dry. I then got out the ironing board, the iron and some greaseproof paper in order to work on the angelina fibres. It is such a long time since I used them and some I didn't really iron enough which made die cutting a bit more difficult.

The thin metal die I used from the leaves by Clearly Besotted, didn't really like the fibres much so I had to use scissors as well. The other dies are large red Sizzix ones and they had no problems at all!
I then used double sided tape to stick everything down a bit randomly on top of each other.

I found a banner die cut on my desk (as you do) and stamped a Clearly Besotted sentiment in a toning ink and nestled it in amongst the flowers. The last touch (as it were) are some hard glass dew drops, which give a different kind of texture.

The new Quirky Kits are out this week and my first page is up on the blog
Details are there but here is a sneaky peek

and two more pages will be up on the blog soon - so much inspiration!

Just because I can

I actually have something to share that is not a Daring card or a Quirky Kits layout (most of my layouts tend to be for this awesome kit club and you can see them here or buy the kits from here)
I have been itching to start documenting this years summer holiday so have made a start with two layouts.

This actually comes right at the end of the holiday so I will need to stick it near the back of the album for now. I was suffering from toothache so didn't have a meal out with everyone else (sad face) but they took ketchup and wine in real glasses to have chips on the quayside. Very refined!
The inspiration for the layout comes from Victoria Marie - after I watched this Youtube vid - not hugely the same but that is where the photo placement comes from

As it happens almost all the papers are from old Quirky Kits apart from the diagonal stripe which is Crate Paper. I think all the embellishments are from old Kits as well. Leo has started putting the embellishment kits in handy see through pouches and I try to stick all the old embellishments in there as my first go to place for finishing touches. Feel free to play spot the kit!
Quite a lot is from the last one as there was quite a foodie theme but the stars, brads, hearts and arrows go back further.

I did lots of outlining as is my wont. I am such a huge fan of stark black and white with lots of colour in between and I can't see that changing any time soon. It was only when I finished the page that I felt it had too much white space so I added in the yellow splotches with a Tim Holtx stencil and two yellow distress inks. It meant I could also make "mushy" look a little more like the actual peas (bleurgh, I am not a fan)

Here are some close ups

 lots of layers

 finally using little cut apart cards! (I don't know why I find them difficult and always feel ridiculously excited when I put one on a layout!)

Cute little brad...

The second layout is based on an old sketch from Sketchnscrap, as I have been feeling that my layouts are a bit samey at the moment - although as usual it ended up quite different from the sketch - probably because of the orientation of my photos

I wanted to add something down the right hand side but not too dark so pulled out an old Hambly transparency. I have a few of these hoarded and really ought to use them! 
Almost all the rest of the papers are from a 6x6 pad - the Simple Stories Say Cheese 2. The pale blue honeycomb is from 24seven by the same company. As well as diving into my Quirky folder I went right back through my stuff and unearthed some Fancy Pants stickers, Basic Grey alphas and those metal diamonds - I have a whole bunch of those tags and really must use a few more!

The gold and red embellishments are from Crate Paper Poolside

I added a black outline and some Wink of Stella pen to the heart on this cut apart paper

My camera didn't like the mix of the transparency, the colours and the journalling (most of which is on top of gesso) so here is a close up

(a bit bright cos it was still hard to get in focus this grey morning)

I'm hoping to squeeze in a bit more crafty time this week, although there is a lot of work to be got through as well :)

What not to call a blog post

My last blog title - "Its me age" has spawned more spam comments than any other I've posted! Mostly for things due to, yes, age. Well I am not having eye surgery or taking any more pills than I have to thank you very much :) 
Its been a tough week for me - and more so for the families of two dear people from one of my Churches. One died as the result of a tragic accident and the other quite suddenly after a long illness and both are very much missed by me and the community.One funeral has happened and there is one to come - times of sorrow in loss but also celebrations of lives well lived.

All of which hasn't really left any time (or inclination) to craft. But I did manage my Daring Card for this week - its another Elemental Inspiration one as yet another month has come round!
Here is the picture we were given as a challenge by Svenja.

Initially I panicked! But by the time I finished I had used more elements than I think I have ever done before for one of these cards - even though my card still looks pretty simple

I took the blue and red from the right hand wall and the red box; I used a due cut heart from woodgrain paper and another wooden element; I took the two cicles from the poster on the right hand wall; the wooden arrow represents all the other wood; the "with" sentiment was embossed to look a little like the drawers with words on. And finally near the red box on the photo are two streams of shiny things (probably coins) which reminded me of the sequins that were on my desk for some reason - so they were featured as well.
The papers are mostly Fancy Pants from different collections and the die cut is a Clearly Besotted shaker die - I cut around the outside.

This picture has created all sorts of different looks by the designers so do go and see  - and we have a fabulous guest at the moment as well - Carol Plume. Carol it is great to have you with us.


 

Its me age

yes it has been awhile (again)
but I have just hit my half century and life has been a bit hectic.
I celebrated by having a day shopping in Exeter with Carys (I had a necklace and some flannels. I know how to live) followed by a fear conquering trip on the big wheel in Torquay.

Now that is done I don't have to do it again do I?

We went on our long family holiday to (welsh) Newquay. Just after this photo was taking we had our one and only sighting of a dolphin all holiday despite this being the dolphin watching capital of the WORLD (well, Wales anyway)

(look how much taller than me my baby is now...)

We returned to celebrate number 2 son doing very well with his degree (Yay! I always feel able to boast when I am rubbish at what they study) and then my friends from school came down to visit for more birthday celebrations

(shenanigans slighty tempered by me having to get up and work the next day....)

So crafting has been sorely neglected lately - except for the last two Daring Cards,

Last week there was a sponsored dare by Ruby Rockit who sent us an amazing bundle of goodies... our theme was Birthday Rock with the added challenge of some ruby red colour in as well...

I took one of the tags we were sent and stuck lots of wooden numbers onto it. If I do this again I will be more careful with the glue because the glimmer mist I used to paint over it resisted some of the glue splodges over the side :( With a red pen I made the little cardstock cake have more of a red trimming than it had been. I die cut a star from vellum and embossed it, used a Paper Smooches stamp (first time I think) then mounted it all on some paper from a Simple Stories Say Cheese 2 pad. My "rock" element, aside from the message are the little crystal rocks aka stick on gems.

This week the theme is New Beginnings - and Nat is our lovely host.  
Apart from a little bit of patterned paper my card is all hand drawn and painted.

I used my Kuretake Clean Colour (I know they are Color really but I can't write that) pens along with a Black Soot Distress Pen. Those pens have such beautiful colours I think. 
The first card base I wrote "New Home" on, I wrote it too far up - even this time I had to cut a little off the bottom of my drawing to get the balance right - doh! A few more sparklies and job done. I think the secret to this sort of writing is to add the grey/platinum pen afterwards as it gives some extra dimension.

oh and some Wink of Stella pen to the heart and trees. Hard to see on photos but so pretty in real life

I'm not here

All being well that is true. I will be on Holy Island with my lovely friend Rachel.
But I wanted to make sure that my DCM post went up so I have scheduled this.
We have a dare sponsored by the fabulous Ruby Rockit this week, which is to make a card for a baby which has some sort of swinging/rocking motion to it.
I did both.... but kind of cheated.

I made a round, rocking card. BUT if you look carefully I did just snip a tiny bit off the bottom so it would stand straight and not rock for the photo. And the two swinging charms? You can just see the foam pads under the "joy" which gives away the fact it will not swing back. Hopefully the card still fits the challenge!

Those two charms might be 10 years old! 
I folded a card base over and cut it with a circle die, making sure to leave a gap for the fold.
I chose two toning papers, one from the Lily Bee Sweet Shoppe pad and the other is Fancy Pants (I think) Everything else comes from the Ruby Rockit Fundemental line.

I gave everything the black Sharpie treatment and when it was all stuck together smooshed some Stickles onto the train. I've strayed from the Stickles since discovering Wink of Stella but this shiny surface needed something with a little more dimension.

Ruby Rockit have offered a prize for this dare (Winner will be drawn randomly just after next weeks dare is revealed). For more details and to find out more about this great company, head for the Daring Cardmakers blog right now!

Oooh blogging on a Friday

its a rare thing these days....
Maybe its because I made my card for this Friday last Friday? 
This Friday the theme is Bokeh style cards. Mine is a blatant case of Laura Bassen's amazing card.
I pinned it (also rare for me) and it is one of my lonely little pins which has been repinned. Laura's card isn't quite bokeh but I thought just a few more circles would do the trick.

 A photo doesn't do justice to this card. It is so pretty and sparkly and dimensional in real life. It is one of my top faves ever/ The circles were punched out of Bazzill cardstock and I painted them with Zig Kuretake paints, adding Wink of Stella over the top for extra shine

 I die cut the thank you several times, the top layer being glitter cardstock and stuck them all together. I mounted the panel on black card and a white card base.

I have been remiss in blogging my scrap pages. I have a new one up of the Quirky Kit blog which you can see here, but I have also being doing some just for fun. I don't think I will have finished layouts about last years holiday before going on this one but I am not going to cry about that!

This page was about being unimpressed by Hill Top

 It mostly uses scraps from the last Basic Grey Christmas papers and also some Crate Paper washi tape and ancient scroll stamps

I did one about our recent trip to Teignmouth using a Fancy Pants collection I have everything of and have hardly used - Trendsetter

There is a big mistake on this layout - we went in 2015. Doesn't time fly! I also used a blue pen to write with and really don't like it. Ah well

And finally

 Again this uses up lots of bits and bobs. I unified all the patterns by adding black lines to them all. It is time consuming but worth it.

The story is about the youth group we have started running and I hadn't had permissions to use their photos at the time of making it, so it is our ugly mugs again :)

I followed the crowd and ended up at Tescos

On of my favourite lines from Max Boyce that.
I share it because this week a few of the Daring Cardmakers shared some cards. So I produced mine for the dare - only at the last minute to discover those cards were for NEXT week. Ah, we all know what assume makes don't we?

Its been a bit of a week though. Phil is on his trip motorbiking round Britain and the house feels strange without him. Also my computer died :( A new one is coming next week and I suppose the upside of Pip being away  is that I get to use his computer.... But nothing is quite the same so everything takes forever (Moan moan)

I'm actually behind as well on last weeks dare (the computer failed last Friday) so will cover that as well in a minute.
This weeks dare was a challenge to use Neon colours - Glowing Neons
I'm not a big fan of neon. Funnily enough as I slaved over my card I thought "the last time I was into neon was when I had that orange t-shirt with "relax" written on it and my lovely friend Cathrinehas just posted a photo of me on Facebook wearing said neon shirt (and fairly bold trousers). I reckon it must be around 1984. I've cropped it so it is just me and her legs :)

It would have taken ages to get my hair that foofy!

Anyway enough nostalgia for the days of neon. Here is the card

 I was initially rather panicked but then decided to borrow some highlighters from my student daughter. (Ulp, I have just realised she is probably exactly the same age now as I was in this photo. I think it was taken in the summer I turned 19, which is where she is now . I can say exactly the same age with confidence as we have the same birthday...)
 I have just bought a new stamp and die set - Doodle  flowers from WPlus9 and some Clean Color (sic) brush pens (never got into copics but I adore these) I stamped the flowers and leaves in black ink. Then I scribbled some neon highlighter onto a perspex block and used a water brush to pick up the colour. It worked really well! I did add some depth and contrast with some of the Clean Color (hate spelling it that way) pens but the highlighters did most of the work. If you look closely at the card, you will see that I used green, orange and yellow as a wash on the background as well. It is more visible to the naked eye than the camera was able to pick up.

I added Wink of Stella clear shimmer over the images, used a black pen to redo the ink sections and added some dots with a white pen. Then I die cut/hand cut the elements out , adding some with foam pads for dimension. The sentiment is from the same set. It was finished off with some sequins and I also raised the panel with foam pads (the thick black line at the top and right hand side is a shadow as it was really sunny when I photographed it)

The week before was an inspiration month and Leo came up with this
 (I would show the pictue here but blogger is mucking me about)
I basically decided to be inspired by the whole thing and had a go painting a face

"Brave effort" I reckon :) I also watercoloured a yellow/grey panel and added paint, stripes and dots to my background patterned paper as well. I raised the Clearly Besotted sentiment onto foam pads and added some sequins. For a change.

I'll quickly share my first outings with those Clean Color pens. They are such fun to use. Here are two cards using Clearly Besotted stamps

and four using the same Woodware stamp, just playing around with colours

If only you could see the Wink of Stella sheen, it is so pretty :)

I'll be back next week - hopefully with my hard drive full of photos of other things I have made.... (back things up? ME who has had two hard drive failures?)



 

Poor old blog

I have rather slowed up on the old blogging - I am never in when the Daring Cardmaker challenge is posted and then rather forget as time goes by. And May was my bloggerversary and everything (9 years blogging now!)

Ah well. I can only do what I can do. (V. philosophical)
So lets have a crafty catch up again shall we?

Two weeks ago the Daring theme was Science Fiction. Svenja wanted us to portray an sci-fi hero of our choice. I didn't read that properly and just went for a sci fi sort of vibe. I'm not sure what I would have done if I had read it properly but the rest of the team filled the brief with some AWESOME cards.

 I dug out my old Purple Onion space people/rocket stamps. They are a bit Futurarma-y aren't they? I coloured them with watercolour paints (the awesome kuretake gansai tambi set) and while they were drying I cut out a rectangle of watercolour paper and added a dark blue wash over it. I took a Heidi Swapp stencil and some diamond glitter embossing paste to create stars. I cut out a spotty planet but looked a bit dull so spread some of the paste on that as well. I loved the shimmer so gave my aliens and rocket the same treatment.

and popped them up with foam pads. The only thing left to do was a hand written sentiment.

My middle son was 21 during that week. He was still at Uni and it is too far to nip in to say hello, plus he was still in the middle of the presentations for his finals. Instead we sent him a fruit cake through the post with a pic of a teddy bear with balloons  - one of those you can write your own greeting on and will go through a letter box. Cool eh? (Don't have a photo of that yet)
And this card

The glittery letters were given an ombre ink treatment that I rather like... I used papers from an old MME pad

This week's Daring Card also featured glitter. I do love glitter.
It was a bit of a challenge. Sharon asked us to try out the Mirror Mirror technique - mirror stamping, mirror die-cuts or patterned papers featuring a mirror image.
I went for mirror stamping - why? I am not the best stamper in the world. But I had finally got my hands on those cute Unforgettable stamps from WPlus9 so had to try. I stamped the image onto some vellum and then placed the vellum on cardstock, tracing over the inked area with a pencil. It was still quite faint but enough to go over with a black pen

I used prismacolour pencils - not totally successful to colour my little grey friends and then cut out party hats, balloons and bow ties with the matching dies to the stamp set. The paper is from the Doodlebug Sunkissed paper pad. The glitter card is from Craft Creations.

Lets see if June is a more blogably productive month! 
 

Some musical interludes

Once more I have been dismally failing to keep my blog up to speed.
That is due to either being very busy, health issues or having fun!

Health - between having another mole removed; blood tests to check if my thyroid medication is the right strength and issues with my teeth - I'm fine!

Work - just always busy in different ways

Having fun - much nicer to talk about.
A week last Saturday I went to two concerts! one was in my church in aid of Save the Children and there was a good mix of different instruments and styles. It was also the day of the first (and maybe last?) Yellowfest music festival held at Torquay United football ground - which is 10 minutes walk from my house. The main acts were Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford from Squeeze and 10CC. Squeeze were a favourite when I was young and 10CC when I was even younger so a group of us went along. We bumped into a bunch of old guys on our way in - they were going one way and we were going another and did the sidestep dance. Turns out that was 10CC (v. embarrassing). Squeeze were good - although it was just the two of them on guitars, and they played some newer solo stuff too. 10CC were just awesome. In both cases they were all well into their late 50's and 60's and it was inspiring to see the love of making music hasn't left them.

This Saturday was Phil's birthday - we arranged to go out for lunch as there was another concert booked at church for the evening and I was doing the raffle (a first for me!). We walked down to the Cary Arms, a local pub/hotel right by the sea.

Birthday boy enjoying his birthday pint :)

A bit more of the view from the terrace. We live a street back from the white houses to the left of the rock fall.
After a delicious meal we walked along to the other cove (the one you can see in the picture) That is Oddicombe beach and so where we live should be called Oddicombe. Obviously people  preferred Babbacombe for some reason. It was quite warm anyway but Oddicombe is sheltered so we sat and had an icecream. I had just bought a new £7 sunhat to go with my £4 sunglasses...

We then had the extra treat of the Cliff Railway back to the top. It is a very steep walk otherwise (and we were full of food)

The evening concert had been cancelled so we biked over to Dartmouth for the music festival, to listen to a group called Wildwood Kin. Who are very good. (I say "biked over" so casually. It was sensible to go on the motorbike but I absolutely hate it. I was screaming "nooooooo" in my head most of the way there....)

Enough of your wittering, show us the cards I hear you say.
Or not.
Two weeks ago the theme for Daring Cardmakers was Doors, with the idea of having an opening door on our cards.
I made a card for a family who will be moving away to an exciting new adventure quite soon

On the front I used some Cricut gold self adhesive glitter card with a Paper Smooches die and an alphabet die. The middle of one of the "o"s became the door knob. I also stamped the rest of the sentiment using the Milo alphabet and white embossing powder. The papers are very old My Minds Eye

Here is the inside of the door. This sentiment was stamped with Delicta gold ink and clear embossing powder. The Christian fish symbol started life as a breast cancer hope one but they are very similar!
Then on the inside of the card

I wrote this with an embossing pen and added tinsel gold embossing powder but that didn't work too well so I went over the outline with gold krylon as well.

This week we made monochromatic cards based on the colours of the rainbow. I have to say that the blog looks so pretty :)

I bought some new shaker dies from Clearly Besotted and made this cheerful card for my lovely husband

Although I made a bit of a dogs dinner of it all...
I pulled out lots of different yellow papers and also inked up the white card in yellow distress inks.
What I should have done is die cut the "star" bit out of a large piece of paper. Instead I cut it from a smaller one and used another star die cut around it (from Spellbinders), using the larger star to cut acetate from as well. All of that was straightforward, it was the fiddly little bits of foam tape that was difficult. I thought I had just about got it all around, but then I filled the star with big beads and also some micro beads. Which all fell out again. You can just about see some of them left here

(right on the very edges of the star) but every time I moved it more came out. Ah well - I share my mistakes so you don't have to do them :)